Watching *the* Democratic Convention: or Chicago 10

Get the idea I’ve been nostalgia-ridden of late? Why, yes, I have. And right at home.

I missed Hillary, and some after talk about her not countering McCain’s ads spotlighting her doubting Obama while she was…actively his opponent. But today’s mail Netflixed me with Chicago 10. Yippie! Yippies! Abbie and Jerry, two of my first celebrity heartthrobs. Yep, right up there with the Hollies (see August 25), and just about the same circa…and not long before I took the stage myself. [They marching in Grant Park and facing an army of pigs swinging billy clubs at their Youth International Party faces, me, starring in Arsenic and Old Lace and facing my friends cheering.]

“There will be no laughing in the courtyard.” Oh, come on, Julius.

Chicago 10 warms me with nostalgia. And reminds me that the Democratic Convention of 1968 was the birth of my interest in, and passion for, liberal politics. Like Abbie said, “It’s incredible theatre.”

“Politics had become theatre and magic,” two of my favorite things to this day. And Allen Ginsberg chanting Om in court. Yeahhhh. Now, and nostalgia.